


Only You (Reprise)

by muzivitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 01:52:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6780457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muzivitch/pseuds/muzivitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weeks after he drafts Peter Parker into the Avengers, Tony has a nagging feeling he's met the kid's aunt May before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only You (Reprise)

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless use of the 1994 movie Only You, which was the first thing that jumped into my mind when I saw Tony and Aunt May on that couch together.

Of course, if May was was completely honest with herself, she’d never _forgotten_ Venice and Damon. It wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot - breaking off a perfectly sensible engagement, flying to Italy as if it would solve all her problems and reveal her real soulmate. Damon hadn’t been it, but man, he’d played it so well - right up until that night when a paparazzo had found them, and she realize Damon wasn’t a Damon, he was a Tony. A Tony Stark, specifically, and her mom was going to know exactly how her trip to Venice went, because there was going to be a picture of her in US Weekly.

With _Tony Stark_. It was enough to keep a girl freaked out all the way from Venice to New York, and for half of her four hour layover at JFK.

The second half was salvaged when Ben sat down next to her in the lounge. Back then, you could meet your family at the gate, and his brother was coming back from a conference in Pittsburgh, on the same plane she planned to get on. She did end up going all the way back to Pittsburgh, but not for very long, and it was easier to brush aside her mother’s million and one questions about Tony Stark when she had stars in her eyes over a guy who was a lot more solid. Ben had been real, a sensible, normal man who she happened to have fallen head over heels for. It was easy, after that, to pack those two weeks with Tony away into a box and not think of them much at all for a good twenty-two years.

It would be romantic to say those years melted away in the seconds after she opened the door and stared up at him. They didn’t. She was older. He was older. Where in Italy he’d been all smooth, tanned skin and easy smiles that masked the shadows in his eyes, now there were lines bracketing his mouth and eyes. There was tension, weariness, and more shadows than could be hidden by charm. A little...twitchiness that put her Ben in mind, after he got back from active duty. That made sense to her; Tony Stark had never been and wasn’t ever going to be a _soldier_ , but he’d been through wars.

She blinked when she heard him clear his throat and shook her head. “I’m staring,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mind beautiful women staring at me,” Tony said. The grin hadn’t changed, and neither had the charm, she thought as she pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Well, it hadn’t and it had. There had been something shallow about it back in Venice, though she’d been too naive to recognize it as that. Now, though, she wouldn’t say it was entirely sincere - Tony wanted something, or he wouldn’t be at this door - but there was something that resonated it.

“I’m looking for Peter Parker,” he continued. May managed to keep the self-deprecating smile inside. Naturally, not her. “He applied for a grant, and I’m very interested in talking to him if he’s home…?”

Just as well, May thought as she opened the door wider to let Tony inside. There were probably dozens of romantic interludes in hideously gorgeous European cities for him; it’d be all sorts of awkward if he actually remembered the one with _her_. “Peter’s still at school,” she said. “If you come in, I can make coffee and you can tell me all about this grant he didn’t say a damn word about to me. I like to be prepared to smack him upside the head.”

 

He hadn’t given much thought to May Parker of the better-than-usual-but-still-atrocious date-nut bread since he’d managed to convince Peter (who he still wanted to call Spider-Boy, because _seriously_ , it was a onesie) to come join him. There were more pressing things on his mind, really, like whether he was going to be called on to kill people he’d fought with, and if he’d be able to do it if he had to. Or like the realization that his parents’ death had never been an accident - that Bucky Barnes had actually killed his parents. Not just his father, who God knew had had his fingers in so many poisonous pies that it shouldn’t even be a surprise that someone put a hit out on him, but his mother. Maria Stark had never done a damn thing except marry Howard.

Eventually, though, even with everything else he could put his mind on, it cycled back to the pretty woman in Forest Hills. She’d been familiar, a distant sort of familiar that he couldn’t put his finger on. He couldn’t even figure out why it mattered, he thought as he pushed away from his desk where he’d finished talking Ross into knots earlier that day. Maybe it mattered because it didn’t. Whether he just wondered about her or whether he...did something about it, May Parker wasn’t going to be the end of the world.

Or maybe, he thought as he leaned his palm against the glass, it was because Pepper still wasn’t calling him back. It was looking more and more like she never would.

“You’ve got whiskey face,” he heard Rhodey say behind him. “But I’m sure as fuck not carrying it over there, so if you want some you’d better come this way.”

Tony snorted and half-turned. “What the _hell_ is whiskey face?” he said. “It sounds like an extra lame playground name. Come on, we’re beyond that, at least.”

“It’s that thing when you’re thinking too hard about something and taking the weight of the world on your shoulders,” Rhodey said as he poured two glasses and extended one, leaning heavily against the couch.

“There’s plenty of blame to put on my shoulders,” Tony pointed out as he moved to take the whiskey. “We both know you could fill half my memoirs with the ways I’ve fucked up.”

“Shit, yes,” Rhodey said as he tossed back half his drink and then met Tony’s faintly annoyed eyes. “I’m not delusional, Tony, I’m not going to disagree with you that you have done some truly dumbass things in your life. For a while I had a theory going that your dumbass side was directly proportional to how goddamn smart you actually are. But the entire world’s not your fault. Zemo’s not your fault.” He was silent for a moment. “And you and the captain parting ways, that’s not your fault either. There does need to be oversight.” Whether the Accords were the right oversight...he was less sure of that, lately.

“Thanks for your support, as always,” Tony said dryly. “But for your information, I wasn’t thinking about…” He waved a hand to indicate the macro-level pile of shit that was around them lately.

“You were thinking about something,” Rhodey said, giving in and easing around the couch to sit down. Tony followed and flopped next to him to stare at Vision’s chess board. “Pepper?”

"A little bit,” Tony said, not looking away from the chess pieces. It was a good out, Pepper was. He had been thinking a little about her. “I don’t think...I think she’s done with me.”

Rhodey was silent, because there wasn’t much he could say to that, and Tony continued after a moment. “I was thinking about someone else.”

“ _Really_ ,” Rhodey drawled out, and Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He hadn’t done that kind of thing about women since they’d been misfit friends at MIT twenty years before, and he liked to think he was beyond that stage. Even if he really wasn’t.

He just gave his best friend a look that didn’t entirely manage to be exasperated. He couldn’t really manage exasperated, despite being so frequently on the receiving end of it.

“You should call her,” Rhodey said. The swagger was gone, with thoughtfulness left behind, and Tony blinked. “Whoever it is - and I’m _not asking_ \- you should call her. You need something outside this place.”

“So do you,” Tony said, and Rhodey shrugged.

“Let me worry about me,” he said. “Me not getting laid? We can all survive that. You? That’s like setting the timer on a bomb. _Nobody_ wants to deal with that shit, Mr. Stank.”

“You’re lucky this whiskey’s too good to pour over your head, you know.”

 

 

He meant to put it out of his mind. Tony had plenty to worry about without adding a...a relationship, he supposed. He’d lost his taste for one night stands once he’d really been with Pepper. Even if he hadn’t, first glance was enough to tell him that May Parker wasn’t a one night stand kind of woman, and no matter what Rhodey said, he wasn’t in any place to be rebounding with someone else.

Still, even his increasing games of cat and mouse with Ross weren’t enough to completely distract him, and Tony found himself thinking. Thinking on her. He blamed that nagging sense of familiarity, and he’d even had Friday dig for him, but nothing. There wasn’t a reason to keep digging when it came to Peter’s aunt, so he’d had her drop it.

He couldn’t quite, himself, and Tony wasn’t all that surprised when he found himself standing outside the sturdy house in Queens, waiting for someone to come to the door.

May raised her eyebrows when she pulled the door open to reveal Tony Stark. He’d been on her mind, too, in the last several weeks. It was only natural. She didn’t date, not while Peter was still in school and in the house - and from what she heard, she wasn’t really missing much - but there was no real harm in reliving the glory days, so to speak. Even if the glory days in question were two weeks in Italy with a notorious playboy. You couldn’t say he hadn’t been good at it.

“Peter’s next door mooning over Mary Jane, if you’re looking for him,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned against the doorjamb. “The Watsons’ll kick him out around dinner time.”

"What if I’m not looking for Peter?” Tony said, and May let out a short laugh.

“You can’t tell me you’re looking for me,” she said.  “My date bread didn’t make that good of an impression.” She moved to let him in, though - having Tony Stark standing on your porch seemed like a recipe for disaster. One thing that had changed in the last twenty years was smartphones made everyone a potential paparazzo.

“I hate dates,” Tony said. “Yours was almost good enough to overcome that, but they’re still a scourge. Up there with carrot cake and baked goods made with zucchini.”

“You’re full of shit,” May said as she got a couple of mugs down from the kitchen and lifted the coffee pot in question. Tony nodded as he slid onto one of her mismatched stools and she poured him a cup. “It’s high-quality shit, though, so you should feel free to keep dumping it in my direction.”

Tony laughed a little as he picked up his mug. It felt rusty, his laughter, like he hadn’t done it for real in a while. Which was true enough, he supposed. “I really did come to see you,” he said. “I mean, I’ll check in on the kid too. I told him to break some eggs, but there’s eggs and there’s _eggs_. You looked familiar,” he said when she gave him a puzzled look. “It’s been bothering me since I was here.”

“For two months?” May added cream to her own coffee and took a sip. “Honey, you could have just called. I would have told you.”

Tony tipped his head to one side, and May grinned as she leaned her elbows on the counter. “Twenty-two years ago,” she said. “We were babies, in Venice, and I didn’t know your name for two weeks until I ended up in a tabloid magazine as the flavor of the minute.”

“Venice,” Tony said, and then pointed at her. “You said your name was Faith.”

“You said your name was Damon,” May said, tossing back her hair with a bit of a smirk. “So I think we’re even. I’d just broken up with my fiance, and I wanted to be someone else. For a little while.”

“I’ve had that feeling. I just liked the idea that someone didn’t know who I was on sight,” Tony said. “I’m not even sure where I came up with Damon.” He remembered her, and their two weeks, now. It was one of the first times he’d felt tired of being Tony Stark - just three years after he’d buried his parents. He’d gotten used to that sensation over the years. It seemed he got more tired of himself the older he got.

He had friends who’d probably say that was a sign he needed to change himself. He’d done a lot of that in the last several years, though. There was probably a limit to how much one man could.

“Hmm.” May’s lips curved as she sipped on her coffee. “I’ve got to admit, it wasn’t the best moment of my life when we got our picture snapped. I immediately thought that my momma was going to kill me dead. But it worked out. I met my husband in the airport lounge in New York, when I was waiting for my connecting flight.”

“See, I keep telling people I’m like Cupid. No one believes me.” Tony smiled as May laughed again. “Your husband,” he said. “He’s…?”

“Gone,” May said. Her laughter dimmed a little. “A….about six months ago now. It was a mugger. Peter took it hard. He and Ben were close.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said. He wasn’t good at his own loss, and no better at other people’s. He always wanted to fill up the holes with something.

He paused as he fought that impulse. “I actually was going to ask you out for coffee,” he said, and it was the right thing to say. May laughed again.

“I went and ruined that,” she said. “I have half a dozen friends who probably want to smack me and have no idea why.”

“We could make it dinner,” Tony said. He pushed on as May hesitated. “Not a date. I’m date-averse, remember?”

“So you said,” May replied. “I find this kind of date even more believable, actually. What would dinner be, then?”

Tony was quiet for a moment before he spoke. “Just friends,” he said. “I’m recently out of a relationship. My best friend thinks I should start up something else, but it feels like a bad idea.”

“Then you shouldn’t,” May said. “Dinner sounds nice. Tonight?” She was already moving to where she’d tossed her jacket over the couch. The sweater dress and boots she’d worn to teach that day weren’t Tony Stark levels of fancy, but they’d have to do.

Tony raised his eyebrows, deepening lines that hadn’t been there twenty-two years before. “And Peter?”

“He’s entirely capable of reheating his own lasagna. I didn’t raise that boy to be helpless.”


End file.
